


Dad's Old Shirt

by picklescantwrite



Category: Calvin & Hobbes, Peanuts
Genre: Coming Out, F/M, Family Feels, Multi, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 22:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12517728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/picklescantwrite/pseuds/picklescantwrite
Summary: At the age of ten, Calvin Johnson's mother and father explain who they are and how they (and Calvin) came to be. As inquisitive as their young boy is, Mark and Patricia's son could never have prepared for this.





	Dad's Old Shirt

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [My Original Calvin and Hobbes Fan Theory](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/332556) by Phoenix Carver (me). 



On the morning of Calvin's tenth birthday, before he could open any presents, his father Mark woke him up early. Pushing up his thin wire glasses and trying his best to look calm and stable, it was still obvious he'd been up all night worrying, wondering just how to explain what he needed to say.

So he'd start with the basics. "Good morning, Calvin." he said quietly to his son, who still groaned and turned away from him sitting on the bed.

"Dad, it's the weekend. Too early."

"I know, but your mom and I wanted you to have some breakfast with us first before I head off to work. Just the three of us."

Calvin groaned again. "Do you have to work on a Saturday, Dad?"

"Only until 6:00. Then we can marathon all the cartoons you want once we get back home." Mark said, smiling. Convinced, or just resigned to the fact that his dad wasn't going to go anywhere unless he got a move on, Calvin rolled out of bed, his messy blond hair sticking up all over the place more than usual. 

* * *

 

At the kitchen table, he saw his dad dressed in business clothes and his mom wearing a bathrobe and slippers, her hair also in a mess around her face as she stirred her coffee sleepily. Patricia Johnson was never one for glamour; if a morning was hard to wake up and a breakfast was tough to make, she made no bones about it. She never even lectured Calvin on his cereal choices anymore, because at least he was at the age where he could make his own meals and save her a lot of trouble. She always made it look like she was watching carefully what he chose, but in reality her mind was just on the next moment of sleep she could catch next. 

But today was too important, and so she was up at what felt like the crack of dawn, holding her husband's hand. Mark had a box in his lap under the table, not really trying to hide it, but just saving it for the right time. As Calvin finished putting four more marshmellows into hs bowl of chocolate cereal, he headed over to the kitchen table across from Mom and Dad. "So what did you want to talk to me about?" he said, cutting right to the chase. "Unless I destroyed another bathroom toilet in my sleep, I don't think I deserve a lecture this early."

Despite the grumpiness of the early hour, Patty smiled. Calvin was smart-mouthed enough to make her life a living hell sometimes, but also thoroughly entertain her. She shook her head. "Nah, kiddo, you're not in trouble. This is just...something more related to us. Both of us." She patted Mark on the shoulder, who put his arm around her as well nervously.

"Yeah, we...we've been meaning to tell you our story for a really long time. And your story."

Oh jesus. Calvin figured he knew where this was going. "Dad, I already know how sex works. You really don't need to tell me. Especially over breakfast. I know I'm not supposed to have Sex Ed until tenth grade or something, but I sat in on a lecture, okay? I thought they were giving out free balloons at first."

Patty burst into laughter, and Mark chuckled, patting her back to try and calm her down. "Oh my god, no. No Calvin, that's not why we brought you here." Patty wheezed, once she had finished. Calvin was used to making his mom laugh, both intentionally and unintentionally. Stone-faced Dad was another matter; he rarely did anything but smile meekly. 

"Then what is it?"

"Well, Calvin, this is actually pretty serious stuff. We're going to need you to listen carefully for all of this. It means a lot to both of us." Patty prepared him, hoping that this wouldn't backfire into negative persuasion and her son would be nothing but jokes - for Mark's sake. 

"Uh...yeah. Sure. What, you getting divorced?"

"No, we're not getting divorced, Calvin." Mark frowned.

"Well unless it's grades, sex, or divorce, what do parents talk about that's really serious?" Calvin asked. "I'm confused."

Mark and Patty looked at each other. They'd have to be more clear with the boy. "Right, okay, Calvin. We'll explain it the best way we can." Mark said, and brought out the box from under the table. "You remember how you kept asking me why I never had any old family photos?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I do have some. They're all right in here. The reason I haven't shown them to you before was because - they're different. They look very different."

"You mean they're in black and white? I've seen those before?"

"No, Calvin. Yes, they're in black and white, but that's not why they're different."

"Did you have bad hair? Lots of people in your time had bad hair. Don't worry about it."

Mark rubbed the bridge of his nose tersely. "No, Calvin. That's not what this is about, either. I'd really appreciate if you could just let me say this without any more commentary."

Calvin looked to his mother, usually the more easygoing one of the group, for some words of reassurance. He didn't know what he was even getting in trouble for this time. Patty sighed, and decided to try another approach.

"Calvin," she started "do you know about guys and girls. No, this isn't a sex thing." she interrupted over him before he could answer. "I mean gender."

"Yeah. There's guys and there's girls. I know that."

"Yeah, well, there's something else you need to know. There's a lot more than just guys and girls."

"Whoa, really? Is it like sci-fi, like aliens?"

"No, Calvin. They're human beings, but sometimes their gender isn't as straightforward as being a guy or girl. In many cases, some kids are born as one gender, but they were really meant to be another."

"What's that mean?"

Mark pushed his glasses further up his nose, and started slowly opening the box on the table. "It's called being transgender. It means that even if you have - and since you've taken Sex Ed I don't mind saying this - a penis or a vagina at birth and they call you a guy or a girl, you know you're something else. There's a difference between boys who like playing with dolls and dressing up in pink skirts, and boys who feel very sad because nobody sees them as a girl and that's what they want to be. And a difference between girls who are tomboys-"

"-and kids who look like girls and who everyone thinks are girls, but really see themselves as guys." Patty finished, and took on a somber look. "People used to call it a mental illness or a sin in certain religions. But it's been around forever, and it's very very real. And many people are like that."

"So what happens?" Calvin asked. "Do they just go around feeling sad forever? Why doesn't anyone talk about it if it's this big?"

"This happens a lot to both young kids and adults. Remember how more people thought it was a sin in the past? Well some still do. They get angry and violent over it. And kids who feel this way who try to be open about it get bullied a lot. That's why people don't talk about it."

"And we've waited this long to talk to you about it," Mark pointed out. "for the same reason. Not because we believe you'll be mean. You're a very smart boy and very understanding and kind. We know that. This is just something that takes a lot of maturity to understand and accept, and even some adults have trouble understanding it."

Calvin nodded, still not getting the full extent of what this meant for him. Okay, so there were boys born as girls and girls born as boys...or something. And there were a lot of people who really didn't like it and did mean things to them. Heck, kids did mean things to kids who weren't even like that, so he couldn't even picture what it would be like for a boy to start saying openly that he was a girl, and the amount of pain he would receive for that. Or she would. Whichever.

"So the transgender people - do they always feel sad?" he asked again.

"Not always. There's a lot more hope for kids nowadays than there used to be. People talk about it more and are more open about it. And when they get older, when they're teenagers or adults, many transgender people - let's just call them trans for now - many trans people get help with becoming their gender. The gender they were meant to be. And it really helps them not feel sad anymore."

"What kind of help?"

After rummaging in the box for a couple minutes, Mark pulled out what looked like a very worn-out tank top and blew some dust off of it. "Here we go." he said, smiling at Calvin. "This is one of the methods we're talking about."

"Is that your old shirt, Dad?" Calvin asked, holding his nose. "It smells really rank."

"Well I haven't worn it in a while. I think if I did now, I might get some diseases from how long it's been up there." He turned the shirt inside out, revealing further sweat stain marks under the arms and in a line across the lower chest. He pulled at the material at the front of the shirt.

"See this, Calvin? It's called a binder. This is one of the more rudimentary forms of assistance with transgender men trying to change their bodies to fit their gender. When trans men biologically start to go through puberty, they grow breasts, which really feels and looks awful to most of them. So in order to deal with managing those feelings and not letting anxiety overcome them, they wear this under their clothing."

"Do they all smell like that?"

Mark laughed, until he smelled the shirt himself, and grimacing, put it away. "No. I'm just better at hygiene than I used to be, thankfully."

"It's like a reverse bra." Patty explained straightforwardly. "For men with breasts, it pushes their chest down and in so they don't have the appearance anymore. But it can be painful if people wear it for too long - it's essentially pushing hard against your ribs, kind of like when those old-timey ladies wore corsets."

Calvin shuddered. "Those looked like torture devices. People wear this, too?"

"Some do. Others find it too painful or hard, or can't find anything in their size. Either way, it's the first step towards something much bigger." Mark stood up and took off his jacket. "Now don't lose your lunch, Calvin, but this is educational. I'm going to take my shirt off again-"

Calvin jumped up and nearly ran from the table, but despite the morning lag his mother was still able to beat him to the door. "Calvin, no, don't worry, he's not going to do that. Mark, at least show him the photos in the box so he **gets** it, for God's sake." she complained over Calvin's shoulder at her husband.

"Right, right, I'm sorry. I was getting ahead of myself."

"Damn right."

"Apologies, sir."

Patty rolled her eyes, and Calvin smiled again as he sat down at the table. It was the one thing his dad had ever done to make him laugh; he would occasionally call his mom Sir when she was being incredibly bossy. 

"Okay, so, Calvin - we want you to see these first. I'll start." Patty reached into the box once she was back at the table, and taking out two, handed them over to Calvin. "These are old school photos from when we were kids. That's me on the left."

Even with the grainy filter, it was unmistakably his mother - same wild messy long hair, same casual masculine fashion sense. She wore a lot more plaid now than stripes, but both of these pictures seemed to have the same striped shirt and flip-flops. In one photo, she was in a baseball cap, pitching a ball towards a girl batter with short dark hair and very thick glasses. Another was a yearbook clipout with two middle-school photos glued together. The first read, under his mother's face, Patricia Reinchardt.

"It looks just like you, Mom." he commented, and she smiled. He read the other one, and something clicked in his mind. Something askew. 

 _Marceline_ Johnson

The dark hair, the glasses...he hadn't pieced that together with any similarities at first. Maybe it was a coincidence? Looking back up at his father, who was smiling nervously, he asked "Dad - did you used to be a girl?"

Mark smiled forgivingly. "I was transgender, Calvin. I **am** transgender. I always was a boy, but couldn't fix anything about it until I became a man. Until then, people always called me Marcie. I even called myself Marcie, before I realized I could change my name."

"What did you do about it?"

"There's a surgery transgender people can get that changes the shape of their chest. It's called top surgery. There's also a medicine trans people can take, depending on whether they're a trans man or trans woman, that gives them a hormone they need in their body to help it become more like their gender. In my case, I took a hormone for testosterone, and it caused my voice to change and my hair and muscles to grow differently. That's a hormone you get naturally, Calvin, because you were biologically born a boy."

"Girls have some testosterone, too, but not enough to change their bodies." Patty explained. "Trans men need more of it. Trans women, meanwhile, need something called estrogen."

"So in my case, I had both surgery and testosterone medicine to help me physically look and sound more like a man." Mark finished. "Never grew much hair, but I never really looked good with a beard, anyway." Before Calvin could have a chance to object, he lifted up his shirt. "If you squint really hard, Calvin, you can see the scars from my surgery. I got that surgery almost eleven years ago."

"Wow!" Calvin said; he could see the scars and they looked totally rad, like something an old pirate would have. "I always thought scars were supposed to be really gross. Those are cool."

"Over time, they heal. And yeah, I do think they look cool." Mark replied, putting his shirt down and blushing at Patty wiggling her eyebrows at him. "I'm not the only one, although **someone** won't admit it."

"Because it **someone** did, then **someone else** would let it go to their head." Patty countered. Turning her attention back to Calvin, she said. "And now you know why this was so important to tell you. Your dad's not out to everyone - not everyone knows he's transgender, and not everyone would accept him for that. But we wanted to tell you, because you're our son and we love you. And we don't want you to ever feel like it's wrong for someone to be different, okay?"

"No way. I think it's cool. It means Dad had to go through a lot to be my dad. And yeah, I know it's not the same as everyone else. I know I'm adopted - you told me that already." Calvin stated. "You adopted me when I was born."

"From a very old family friend." Patty repeated. "She was going to another country and she couldn't take care of you, so she gave you to us. What we didn't say about that was that a year after your father transitioned physically and got his gender legally changed on all his records, we got married, and that same year we adopted you from Lucy."

"So you were called a girl until then, Dad?" Calvin asked. He knew of Lucy, certainly, but he'd never met her. She was away in Tibet, somewhere, and sent him gifts every year for Christmas from wherever she was traveling. Never signed Mom - only Lucy. It was okay. He already had a mom. 

"Yeah - it was pretty rough. And the legal process is still hard to deal with for both a gender and name change. But I had a supportive girlfriend - your mother at the time before we were married - and I was lucky to have a very good family who accepted me." Mark said. "So right after it was over, we were all ready to marry. Your mother would have been ready to go whenever, she says, but I wanted to look good in a suit at our wedding and be her **husband**. And I did that."

"So how long did you know about it, Mom? You were friends as kids, right?" Calvin asked Patty.

"That's right. Mark never told me until about seventh grade, when he was starting to become more sure of it himself. He told me that in private, he wanted me to call him Mark. In public it was too dangerous. Up until that point, I had only ever been in love with girls. But I realized that I loved Mark for Mark, no matter what gender he was." Patty told him. She put an arm around Mark's shoulders again. "I was a tomboy who loved ice skating, and Mark was a man in hiding. We were the power couple nobody knew about, for years and years and years. Nobody suspected it, even though we were always together."

"I came out first to Patty once we started dating, then to my friends after we got engaged. Everyone was really nice and happy." Mark said, holding Patty's hand. "We don't mean to get all sappy on you, sport, but considering how many people still feel about gay marriage or a transgender person marrying someone, it was a pretty big deal for us to do it. But we loved each other, so-"

"You take those risks." Patty finished, leaning her head into Mark's shoulder. Calvin was too fascinated by the story to be freaked out by his parents being all lovey-dovey with each other, and he slurped down his last gulp of chocolate cereal.

"That's really cool, Dad. Seriously. And Mom, you ice skated? Did you ever want to be in the Olympics?"

Patty shrugged. "I was just proud to have two feet on the ice, kiddo. The spangly outfits got me interesting more than anything."

"Your mother's a closet Liberache." Mark said as a false aside to Calvin, and genuinely laughed when Patty snorted joyfully and pushed him - something Calvin had never seen him do. This had certainly been a life-changing day all around, and he'd never even opened a present yet. 

"And that's the whole story, sport. You wanna go open your presents now?" Mark encouraged.

"Hell yeah!"

As Calvin bounded from the table with joy, Patty took the last sip of her coffee, and she and Mark followed him slowly into the living room, hand in hand. The box lay on the table. With the breeze from the window, a third picture on the edge of the box flew out onto the table - Patty and Marcie; Winter Wonderland Prom, January 2 2000. They had written on the bottom of it with ink, and they had taken the photo outside Marcie's home in the snow, hugging against the cold. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted this to be a hopefully good-for-older-kids explanation of the basics of what transgender people are. I don't think it needs to be a conversation for a certain age, but some of the details regarding sex and genitals are. But there's nothing inherently more adult or sexual about gay or trans people. They're a part of life and the human experience, just like anyone else.
> 
> This was based off an earlier fan headcannon I made on my blog. I'm also trans, though I'm more on the genderfluid/nonbinary spectrum than simply "transitioning fully to guy", etc. etc. So this was important to me. I hope it was a good read for you, too.


End file.
